


Tainted Past

by HyperKey



Series: Tainted [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: AU, Emotional, F/M, Gen, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 16:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6058186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKey/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first of two Bonus Stories I am going to Write for Tainted Souls. You should read that one first, otherwise you probably won't understand these :3</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tainted Past

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus story to Tainted Souls.  
> Tying up lose ends and all that. It felt incomplete without this, but Tainted Souls is written in John's PoV and it felt wrong to shove in something like this into the main fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Rose held her breath when she slowly entered the hospital room. She had had no time to dye her hair, wasn’t sure how he’d react. If he’d react at all. When she had found out about him still being alive, she had been shocked. Angry even. But soon enough she understood his reasons, and she felt as if she had deserved it. Long ago she had hurt him in a similar way. It was only fair that he got a chance to get revenge. Even if he wasn’t aware of it.

She watched John leave the room, slow, reluctant. She knew it had been a close call for the teen. But he was up and about and he would be fine in a few weeks. That made her forget how scared she had been, how many tissues she had ripped apart next to the telephone and how desperate she had been when she had ordered the plane ticket to come here.

But when John left the room she had no idea what to say. Her mind was blank, as if she had seen him for the very first time in her life. It was different from their actual first meeting. But this man in front of her, was he still the same? He looked tired, older. Not by much. Maybe that was just because he was exhausted.

He stared at her, his eyes still as blue as she remembered them. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t cry, and yet she felt the tears creeping up at her, threatening to spill. He stared. Curious, confused, scared. She could almost feel how much he wanted to wrap his arms around her, but she stood still, waited for an explanation.

She had been with a few men in the past four years, and still she couldn’t let go of the past. It had been ridiculous and she knew it had been unhealthy and stupid. But she couldn’t move on. She tried hard to pretend that she had, but deep down inside depression over her lost love was eating away at her. Him coming back like that was almost too good to be true.

He opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t move, watched her. His expression changed. Curiosity faded into resignation. His gaze wandered to the ugly floor, stayed there.

She saw him tense, hands clenched around a small spiky ball. The tremble was barely visible, but it was there. Rose resisted the urge to walk over to him and sit down next to him. She needed to hear his explanation first. But as minutes passed the silence became deafening. He was looking for words, she could see that clearly. He had made a few attempts to say something, but no words came out.

Rose closed her eyes for a moment, tried to chase away all the fear that was building up inside her. What would he say? She felt as if it had been her who had done this, not him.

Another two minutes passed in silence, then Rose realized he wouldn’t start the conversation no matter how long she stood there waiting. He was afraid to talk to her. She had a good idea why. And still, she felt disappointed that he didn’t trust her that much.

“Jack…” She whispered, forced herself to keep standing where she was. She wanted to jump at him, hug him, kiss him. But nothing would be solved if she would just ignore the conflict. “I trust you.” She told him. “No matter what your reasons were, I will try to understand them.”

He tensed a bit more, slowly turned his head to look at her. Jaw clenched, eyes sad. Once more he tried to say something, but he shook his head and turned his gaze back to the floor.

“Come on…” She urged impatiently. “At least try to explain it…”

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “I…” he shook his head once more, looked at her. “It’s…  it… was selfish…”

“What was?” She asked immediately, still hadn’t moved from her position.

He looked at her like a lost puppy, tried to make her understand what he couldn’t tell her. Of course she wouldn’t. She couldn’t read thoughts after all.

He sighed, some of the tension leaving his body. “I… should have told you… at least you…”

“Jack-“

“No.” He interrupted her. “If I had told you…” he gripped the ball tighter, bent it out of shape.

Rose bit her lip when she saw his eyes fill with tears. Again she was about to walk up to him.

“If I had told you,” he repeated “This… would have been easier…” He turned his head away from her, took in a sharp breath. “I’m sorry for making you two go through this. If there had been a different way…”

He was fighting with tears, Rose could hear it clearly. “Why did you do it?” She asked silently, noticed that her hands hard begun to tremble as well.

“….I… could revive the patriots with a piece of code they left in my head… the only way to get rid of it is to erase my memory… Boris… felt threatened when I refused that…”

“So he decided to get rid of you.” Rose concluded.

Jack nodded slightly.

“When did you want to tell me?” She said sharply. “Did you know that John picked up the phone when Boris called?! He was so shocked he didn’t say a word for days!” She yelled, finally wanted to get rid of all the anger she had built up.

He didn’t say anything, quietly listened to her anger.

“He tried so hard to pretend he was fine! Do you know how much he missed you?!”

“Rose…” Jack whispered, but she ignored him.

“We were devastated… He… I…” Her own tears ran over her cheeks. “I missed you...” Her voice was just above a whisper now.

He only nodded, didn’t move otherwise. Rose dropped her purse, finally walked towards the man she hadn’t seen in so long. He didn’t seem to take note of it, flinched when he saw her standing in front of him. She didn’t give him time to recover when she slapped him across the face, mindful to hit the less injured side of his face. No doubt he was in more pain now, but she felt as if she had to do that.

“That’s for making us suffer like that.” She hissed through her tears and hugged him tightly. She gripped the shirt they had given him, took in the unfamiliar scent. It didn’t matter to her when she kissed his hair and closed his eyes. “Don’t ever, ever do anything like this again…”

He was silent for a long moment, then she felt him nod. His arms slowly wrapped around her, cold tears dripped onto her shoulder.

“Rose…”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry.” She replied. “You had a good reason… I overreacted…”

“No.” he sighed. “I… wanted to tell you so often… I called you a few times… but I never dared to say anything…”

“So you were that stupid caller who always hung up the moment I picked up.”

“Probably.”

She ran her hands through his hair, held him tightly as he fought against his tears.

“Do you have any intention of coming back?” She asked then, curious but also afraid of his answer.

“…If… if you don’t mind.”

She shook her head, gripped him even tighter, was glad that his body wasn’t made of flesh and bone. Otherwise, she feared, she would have broken some bones with her tight grip. He grunted anyway, held her tighter in return. Not too much.

“It won’t go back to how it was.” She reminded him then, “But… If you want to come back I won’t stop you.”

“…You’re not angry?”

“Not at you.”

“Dok  thought up a plan to stop Boris from bothering us.”

“If you run again I’ll chain myself to your neck.” Rose threatened.

She heard the smile in his voice when he replied, “Memory loss. That’s what Dok’s going to tell Boris. I have no intention to revive the patriots… they… turned me into this, why should I do them that favor?”

“And if you just told Boris?”

“He didn’t believe me the first time, I doubt he’d do it now.”

Rose pulled away a little to look at his face. Gently she wiped his tears away, her hands lingering on his cheeks. He blinked more tears away, tried not to look her in the eyes.

“You…” he muttered. “This… is how you used to look before we met, right?”

Rose sighed. “I can never look that way again…”

“Rose?”

She shook her head. “Forget about it. I have a hotel room not far from here… we should go there, get some rest… especially you.”

“And John?”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s an adult now, he knows what he’s doing.”

“Most of the time…” He sighed.

“Most of the time.” She agreed.


End file.
